Deathless
by Ale798
Summary: Everybody thinks of Death as the bad guy; it's come to kill you. If you asked Death whether it agreed, and he showed up to give you a response- odds is you won't be getting to share your new found information with other. Times up, is the phrase many use; but it's not the sentence Eliza heard when Death showed up at her place.


**Long time no see. Original piece, not tied to anything in specific, just an old doc tucked away in the corner of my laptop, forgotten. Figured I'd polish it up and see if it went anywhere. **

Sirens blared as an ambulance sped past, she could see the accident a couple of blocks away; as always people were crowded around the scene trying to take a look at the misfortune of others. The young woman shook her head in disapproval before unlocking the door to her building and making her way up to her apartment. That had been the third accident that week that was within walking distance of her apartment. She was sick and tired of ambulance sirens, of heart monitors beeping, and that awful sterile smell hospitals always seemed to have. She had just gotten back from visiting her brother in the hospital, he had been hospitalized three weeks ago and the doctors still couldn't tell them what was wrong. As each day passed he looked worse, with less color in his face and less life in his eyes. She was frustrated at the lack of news, and being unable to do anything to help him.

The sirens outside were giving her a headache, she went over to the window and slammed it shut, diminishing the wails outside but not completely silencing them. With a huff of frustration she left the living room getting ready to shower and then go to bed.

_Wake up._ Eliza stirred in her sleep, a dark shadow staring at her from the corner of her room. _I said wake up damn it!_ The voice shouted in her head. She shot up in bed, breathing heavily, she'd never heard that voice before but there was a sense of familiarity behind it. She didn't really have a chance to think about what had just happened; she had her eyes glued to the figure in her room. Eliza lived alone, whoever was in her room with her was not supposed to be there.

"Oh good, you're awake." The voice from her dream said from the dark corner. She lunged out of bed towards the closet where she kept her baseball bat, but fell to the floor entangled in her sheets.

"Will you keep it down you're going to wake up the downstairs neighbors, and the last thing I need is Dolores throwing holy water at me again. That was an annoying tuesday, and luckily I haven't had to deal with her in 50 years."

Eliza didn't know whether to be terrified or confused, for some reason confusion won at the moment. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room?!" She asked trying to stand up, when she finally found herself on her feet she went to the nightstand by her bed and turned on her lamp. The light didn't quite reach the corner where the figure stood.

"I believe you would call me Death." answered a young man in a black pinstripe suit as he stepped out into the light.

Well that's definitely not the answer she had been expecting. A chill ran down the length of her spine, she wanted to shout that he was crazy, to scream until her neighbors called the cops; but standing only a few feet away from him, she had the same feeling she had when she buried her grandmother, her mother, her brother, and her best friend; it was the same feeling she had when she sat across from her brother David earlier that day in the hospital. The feeling that someone- something else was present.

"I expected Death to be a lot older." Her voice was steady even though her entire body was shaking.

"Old, young, it's all the same to me. Time is something your species created in order to know how long you've been in existence, and at what point you were collected.." He answered, taking a look around the room. "So that's why you're here? To collect me?" She laughed, startling him. It wasn't the reaction he expected; he's had people welcome him and leave happily with him, however no one had actually laughed...sincerely at least. He didn't realize it's because she thought she was losing her mind.

"Do you not fear me mortal?" He asked taking a step closer, not understanding.

"I've known you way too long to fear you, I'm more pissed at you than anything. You seem to have an obsession with me and my life. Taking everyone in my life except for me, it's like I've lived with you at my side. So what are you waiting for? Let's go." The glare she gave him would send any person running with their tail between their legs, Death however was intrigued.

"For once I actually get to say I haven't come for you." He did not expect her to grow angrier.

"Then why the hell are you in my room at one o'clock in the morning, scaring me half to death?!" She shouted, he frowned at the pun, "Don't even mention it, I regretted it the second it came out of my mouth, let's just focus on the important matters; like why you're in my bedroom!?" her hand waved the air as if trying to shoo away the bad choice of words that had been released.

"If it bothers you, we could step out and talk in the living room." He offered, not understanding why she was so worked up. Actually he didn't understand a lot about her, this was the first time something like this happened.

"That's not the point! You are-" she threw up her hands exasperated, "you know what, whatever I need coffee and something for this headache." She said as she walked out and headed to the kitchen.

He followed her out and sat at the table, watching her pour herself a cup of coffee. "I do believe social protocol states you offer me a cup as well." He pointed out as she sat down across from him and tossed in two sugar cubes into her mug.

"You offer guests a cup." she answered glaring at him. "You are not a guest, you are an intruder and therefore unwelcomed."

"You do realize you are speaking to Death correct? _Thanatos, La Santa Muerte, Maweth_, whatever you prefer to call me-"

"Annoying." She interrupted, sipping her coffee.

"I could kill you." He frowned at her, annoyed.

"Yeah so could shrimp. You're not that special." She shrugged, unfazed by the young man radiating power in front of her. In times where a person is so overwhelmed they have no idea how to calm down, the body and mind sometimes go numb- that is the exact stage she found herself in.

Death drummed his fingers on the tabletop and studied the strange creature in front of him.

"Now, why are you here?" Eliza asked him setting her cup down on the table. She knew she should be terrified, for many reasons; she either A) lost her mind B) had a strange man break into her house and room, and is now sitting across from her in the kitchen C) just called an immortal being whose job was taking souls, annoying.

"I have a problem, and you seem to be a part of it. So I'm here looking for answers." He clasped his hands and leaned forward. Nothing about him screamed immortal deity, he looked like any 27-year old businessman, a couple wrinkles around the eyes and mouth- whether from smiling or frowning who knew, his eyes themselves were a bit unsettling. They were black, but that wasn't what made them hard to look into, it was that the iris seemed to move and swirl. Like water, black consuming water, empty and soulless.

"How on earth could I be part of your problem?" She asked confused.

He sighed, unsure of how to explain something that never needed explanation. Death never needed an explanation, it was just a natural process of life, putting something like that into words and explaining how it's all screwed up isn't easy. "Let me see if I can explain this in terms you understand." He started off unsure of how it was going to turn out. "You think in terms of time; seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, right?" Eliza nodded silently. "Okay well everybody is created with a certain amount of time, when that timer runs out, that is when I come to take you with me. That timer however isn't always set, it changes and varies depending on the actions taken by yourself and the others around you."

Eliza frowned, not quite following. "How do you mean?"

"Okay so if you were born with 68 years on your timer, and at 16 you start smoking. Well that timer, as you keep smoking, starts running backwards. You go from 68 to 54, to 45, to 32; and as that time is diminishing and you're 'growing up'" he said using air quotes, "you eventually end up meeting with your time. Suddenly you have lung cancer at 31 and next thing you know they're burying you at 32."

"What about accidents and murders? Were those meant to happen as well? Do you cause those?" she asked, thinking about the accident earlier in the day.

"No, I don't cause accidents. Can I? Well yes, but I prefer not to. No, that's where the actions of others come into play. Let's say you're out shopping and suddenly an armed robber is robbing the store, you have 75 years on your timer and she shoots you. That's kind of like an automatic elimination, the timer immediately runs out. Same with accidents, however there are instances where the timer doesn't necessarily run out but it's fluctuating, unable to decide whether to zero-out or not. That's where I have to make a judgement call, like when people die on the operation table or they get an illness that's draining their time. I can either add or take away time."

Eliza's head was spinning, "Okay so what does that have to do with me?" she asked.

"Your timer is gone." Death answered in a very serious tone.

"What does-gone? What does that mean?"

"I don't know." He responded.


End file.
